Estimating the Impact of COVID-19 in India from Life Insurance Claims
Document Details
| AUTHOR | Mihir Mahajan, Shekhar Sathe |
| DATE | May 21, 2022 |
| DOCUMENT | EPW Journal Article. |
| CATEGORIES | Public Health COVID-19 |
Abstract
The data on the death claims settled by Indian life insurers is used to estimate the impact of Covid-19 in India in 2020 and 2021. A conservative estimate of 0.56 million missing death registrations is reported for 2020. An estimate of three million additional deaths in 2021compared to pre-pandemic year 2019 is also reported. This estimate far exceeds the government’s official estimate of 0.481 million Covid-19 deaths during this period.
The authors would like to thank Murad Banaji, Pranay Kotasthane, and Suman Joshi for their helpful feedback on an early draft of this article.